The Bible

Is the traditional position built on a small number of Bible verses?It is sometimes suggested that the orthodox Christian position with regard to homosexuality is based on a very small number of Bible verses (Genesis 19:1–14, Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13, Deuteronomy 23:17–18, Romans 1:24–27, 1 Corinthians 6:9–11 & 1 Timothy 1:10). It is also sometimes suggested that these ‘proof texts’ are negative in nature and (to some degree at least) are a product of their time.Read more

Don't the Old and New Testaments 'diverge' over these issues?It is often claimed that Jesus said nothing about same-sex relationships. But the same people who make this point often insist, rightly, that the few biblical passages on same-sex relationships must be seen in the wider context of the Bible’s teaching about gender, marriage and sex. In this wider context Jesus has a great deal, that is highly significant, to say.Read more

Are evangelicals unreasonably subjective in their selection of the Scriptures they keep and those they reject?Evangelicals are sometimes criticised for their reading of Scripture in that they are seen to be ‘selective’ as to which passages they take as normative. For example, there are passages in Leviticus that are widely agreed as non-normative for today’s world (e.g. Leviticus 19 and its prohibitions on mixed-fibre clothes and particular haircuts). So – the criticism goes – why is it then possible/appropriate to take seriously/literally what Leviticus says about same-sex relations?Read more

Is it hypocritical of the Church to permit remarriage in church after divorce, but not same-sex marriage or blessings of same-sex relationships?When questioned about divorce (Matthew 19:3–12, Mark 10:2–12), Jesus says that the provision for relatively easy divorce made in Deuteronomy 24:1 was a temporary concession to human ‘hardness of heart’ (Matthew 19:8) which has now been abrogated in the light of the coming of God’s Kingdom.Read more

If the Church has changed its mind about slavery and is finally acknowledging the ministry of women, isn’t it right that same-sex relationships are now accepted?This argument depends on the idea that there is some kind of trajectory that leads from the abolition of slavery through the recognition of the need to grant equal rights and status to women to the acceptance of same-sex relations. If we ask what this trajectory looks like the answer is that it consists of an awareness that Christ has given a new status to the socially oppressed and excluded by granting them an equal place within the new community he has created through his death and resurrection.Read more

Jesus’s emphasis in relationships was love – surely marriage is a quality of relationship not a prescribed shape?Songs, slogans and (more recently) tweets have often supported the widespread contention that ‘All you need is love’. More recently, it has been suggested that Jesus’s teaching on relationships had a priority and focus on the quality and nature of love and that, as such, our Christian ethic should be more concerned with the quality of relationships than their shape or pattern.Read more

Does the Bible have examples of same-sex relationships?There is no doubt at all that the Bible does give us examples of loving relationships between people of the same sex. In the Old Testament there are the relationships between Ruth and Naomi (Ruth 1:9, 14–17) and David and Jonathan (1 Samuel 18:1–3, 20:41, 2 Samuel 1:26). In the New Testament there is the relationship between Jesus and ‘the disciple whom Jesus loved’, probably St John (John 13:23, 19:26, 20:2, 21:7 and 20).Read more

﻿Does the Bible fail to endorse committed same-sex r﻿elationships only because it had no awareness or knowledge of them?﻿The Greco-Roman world of the 1st century did not use the binary concepts of ‘gay’ and ‘straight’ that we use today. The Greeks and the Romans viewed human beings simply as sexual beings who expressed their sexuality in a variety of different ways, with members of the opposite sex, with members of the same sex, or with both (either at the same time or at different stages of their lives).Read more

﻿Jesus didn't condemn homosexuality – rather the rich, hypocritical etc. Why are evangelicals so obsessed with same-sex sex?﻿It is sometimes suggested that evangelicals are obsessed with condemning various forms of sexual expression (including same-sex sex) and that this is in contrast to Jesus who did not talk so much about sex. He – the argument goes – was much more interested in condemning the rich and hypocritical, the religious and the unjust.Read more

﻿Did they have faithful same sex relationships in New Testament times?In certain respects the experience of these two worlds – the New Testament’s and ours – is identical. The First Century Greek World, like our world today, knew a considerable range of same-sex relationships. The clear ideal was for a loving, stable, faithful relationship and peer relationships, relationships between people of the same age, did exist.Read more